Program Overview

MA Critical Geographies: Crises, Climate & Inequality

The MA Critical Geographies: Crises, Climate & Inequality is a program designed for students who want to change the world. It aims to provide students with the practical and transferable skills necessary to use geography to find their own career path.

Program Overview

Critical geography, at its heart, is about how we can create more liveable lives. The program explores how power relations and inequalities are central to the creation of places, cities, regions, nations, and transnationalisms, and how these, in turn, are formed through power and recreate inequalities.

Course Content

The program includes the following modules:

• GEOG40450 Critical Geopolitics & Diplomacy: This module explores Critical Geopolitics as an approach to understanding political geographies.
• GEOG40820 Introduction to ArcGIS: This module introduces students to ArcGIS, the most widely used GIS software package, and enables them to understand conceptual, theoretical, and practical geographical considerations.
• EQUL40310 Masculinities, Gender and Equality: This module critically examines the studies of masculinities and gender relations, drawing upon the assumption that masculinity is an organizing principle of society.
• GS40080 Culture and Sexualities: This module looks at the cultural understanding of sexuality, introducing students to critical perspectives and cross-cultural analysis of the way people negotiate and exercise resistance to cultural and structural constraints towards sexuality.
• SOC40930 Crit Race & Decolonial Theory: This course draws on the conceptual and empirical wealth of critical race and decolonial theory to critically re/examine and re/analyse the discursive and material legacies of western European colonial and imperial projects.
• GEOG40970 Critical Geographies: Spatialising Power and Inequalities: This module allows students to build their understanding of the spatialities of power and inequalities, exploring how power and inequalities are central to the creation of places.

Careers

The program is designed to enable students to gain practical and transferable skills that will enable them to work in areas such as:

• NGOs
• International aid, development, or humanitarian agencies
• Global multilateral agencies
• Private-sector research or corporate social responsibility divisions
• Further research, academic, or professional

Admission Criteria

Applicants who do not meet the academic requirements but can confirm professional qualifications and/or experience will be taken into consideration and are encouraged to apply.

Research Areas

The program focuses on critical geographies, including topics such as queer theory, feminism, intersectionality, critical race studies, postcolonialism, decoloniality, Marxism, radicalism, anarchism, and non-representational approaches.

University Ranking

UCD School of Geography is ranked in the top 100 Geography schools in the world, and UCD is proudly ranked number one in Ireland for graduate employability by QS World University Rankings and 78th in the world.